I’m afraid that I can’t help but feel some of the comments left responding to this post go some way towards answering a question Daniel Hannan asked recently: why do right-wing parties struggle to win support from immigrants?

After all, and as Mr Hannan notes, emigration is an entrepreneurial act and immigrants tend to be thrifty, hard-working types. This should, all things being equal, be fertile territory for conservatives. Except, as we know, not all things are equal and they’re certainly not equal in this case.

The truth of the matter is that the conservative movement – whether in the United Kingdom or the United States – still has a race problem. In the United States is manifests itself in the party of Lincoln’s appalling inability to appeal to black voters and, alas and increasingly, latino voters too. In the United Kingdom it’s made apparent in the Tory party’s struggle to win black or asian votes. All this despite much good and well-intentioned work to persuade minority voters they are welcome inside the party.

The GOP, actually, has a better record on these matters than is sometimes appreciated. At a state level, anyway. Even so, if you imagined yourself a black voter in, say, South Carolina I don’t think it takes much imagination to convince yourself you’d more probably be a Democrat these days than a Republican. (These days is important, of course.) And this is so even though plenty of other Democratic voters are less than “progressive” on racial matters.

Much the same could be said in Britain. The BNP and their little, distant cousins in UKIP (related on immigration anyway) draw some of their support from the left. Equally, spend time in any working-class pub in Britain and you’ll discover that illiberal attitudes on immigration (and, for that matter, race) are hardly confined to people who vote for right-wing parties.

Nevertheless, it is the perspective of the black, asian or immigrant voter that counts here. And while, again, there may be plenty of people on the left hostile to their interests that hostility is not ingrained in the official party DNA to anything like it is on the right.

The Tories have come a long way from the Monday Club but, in the end, the Monday Club’s legacy lingers. It is not so very long ago that a significant proportion of the parliamentary conservative party favoured repatriating large numbers of non-white Britons. You don’t need to be very clever to see why a hefty share of the black or asian vote might be unimpressed by this. And so might their children.

Because that’s the problem with this stuff. It lingers for a long time and retains its contaminating power for longer than you might wish. Again, this is not entirely fair. Nor is it unreasonable for Tories to wonder about the impact of immigration on individual communities. Nevertheless it is important to couch those concerns in sensible, even sensitive, terms. Too often, however, I think it plain that many black or asian voters (or, in the US, latinos) hear something else. What they hear is this: These people still don’t like people like us. They think we should not be hear. They do not believe this is really our country.

Again, this is not the sort of thing that David Cameron or Boris Johnson believes. But the idea that conservatism is a cold house for immigrants or ethnic minorities persists nonetheless. And of course it persists. Of course it sticks around. Why would you expect it to go away? Not when the party’s official immigration policy suggests there are too many foreigners living in Britain. Not when leading columnists in mainstream right-of-centre newspapers consider Britain’s “way of life” under siege or fret about the country’s Emerging Islamic Majority or, more generally, suggest that though, don’t get me wrong, yer individual immigrant might be a decent enough bloke there are, in general and this is god’s-honest-troof, just far too many of them.

Well, when that immigrant or that son or daughter of immigrants reads this stuff how do you think they are going to react? How would you react if that were you? I suspect you might think that you’re not going to vote for the party associated with these people and these sentiments and you’re still not going to even if you think the Tory party preferable to the alternatives on more than 80% of the other issues. That’s how toxic this kind of contamination can be.

So, sure, it’s not fair that even left-wing racists (or those giving a good impression of being so) cost right-wing parties votes but that is, I’m afraid, the way it is. It’s a matter of confirming or reinforcing pre-existing stereotypes and, in these areas anyway, that means the right is on the receiving end. Sometimes, of course, the right deserves to be on the receiving end. There’s a thin line between heaven and hell and an even thinner one between conservative and reactionary.

There’s a Just One Drop theory here. That is, it only takes a single drop of stupidity or prejudice on the right to spoil these waters for everyone on the right. But if you play a form of identity politics of your own (you think majorities are above that sort of thing? Please think again) then don’t be surprised when those you say do not belong conclude that your party (or parties) is (or are) hostile to their interests and, actually, even their presence on this sodden archipelago. If you don’t ask people to belong and promise them a welcome they may not always trust your motives.

And, this being so, they won’t vote for you even if, in other respects they should be well-disposed towards your policies. So, yes, Dan Hannan is right to say that it will take the Tories yet more years and much more hard work to persuade minorities to vote for them. As he says, it has “already lost an entire generation of immigrant voters”. But it was the right that lost them, no-one else. And it lost them because it was not sufficiently interested in winning them. Even here, politics is a matter of caring.

An idiotic, deeply cliched effort, eg ‘progressive’ means desireable, but politically, progress towards undesirability and evil is more the norm. Others have made my points admirably. Time is brief and that ‘photo heading was inexusable and I am appalled at your tawdriness. Mr. Massie, were you being ‘progressive’ ?

Simon Morgan

Here in sunny Australia we have a Labour minority government that dismantled what was called the Pacific Solution which tried (in large part successfully) to prevent illegal arrivals coming here, particularly by boat. Since then there has been an exponential increase in the number of people arriving here by boat -naturally.

These people do all sorts of things to ensure they get here, rather than Indonesia or Malaysia- they hijack ships, they scuttle their boats after sending out the SOS in the knowledge that they will be rescued by our Navy (no other navy has the capability), and so on. They have misfired several times and some have drowned.

They also deliberately destroy any proof of identity because they know the authorities here have limited resources to check any information they provide.

Once rescued and put in detention while their claims are investigated – they riot and burn buildings down complaining that it is taking too long and they are being treated inhumanely. Of course, all known refugee advocate groups then howl their indignation at this ‘inhumane’ treatment.

One of the bones of contention is whether to process these individuals ‘onshore’ or ‘offshore’. Onshore means that every one of them gets unlimited access to our courts and our legal system – just think about that for a moment…It goes without saying which one the Greens and assorted refugee groups opt for.

These boat people (numbering 12,000 last year) are taking places from genuine refugees waiting in camps around the world. They are also causing the government to have to redirect funds from other aid projects, because the budget has been blown (they are costing over $5bn. a year ).

The government finally recognized the terrible mistake it made in 2007, and commissioned a special panel to find a solution. This panel’s recommendations only went part way to re-introducing the Pacific Solution, and it appears that they are not working.

Australians are extremely generous people, but they won’t be taken for a ride. Nor will they accept being black-mailed into accepting people here. I am reminded of the uproar created by lefties and the refugee groups when John Howard refused to allow the Tampa to dock here. He was 100% right and they were all hopelessly wrong.

The only good thing that can come of it is that Australians will show their displeasure at the polls next year – Labour is in for the thrashing of a lifetime.

The Left is seldom Right, as I read somewhere, and everything they say or do seems to reinforce this view.

bwims

What do you expect from someone who won the “Orwell Prize”? Orwell despised everything that this bloke and that other “winner” Hari stands for. Similar to the Turner Prize, named after someone who could and did paint and draw beautiful works of art, whereas now it is bestowed on hideous lumps of shite. Orwell predicted this form of oxymoronic “Newspeak”, where the prize is given to the person who least represents the qualities of the person it was named after. Don’t talk about Nobel Peace prizes…

Matthew Whitehouse

…”when that immigrant or that son or daughter of immigrants reads this stuff how do you think they are going to react”…
- In such a way that they understand that being against “so much” immigration is about numbers, not ethnicity. It’s about sharing resources to the point of collapse. If a son of an immigrant had to wait too long for his NHS treatment because what he saw every time he visits his local hospital is too many people (not just immigrants) he could quite sensibly come to the conclusion that there are too many people for the resources we have! That’s how an immigrant can actually be of the opinion that, Yes immigration is good, but it is physically possible to be over-burdened by too many.

AdemAljo

I’m sorry, Massie old chap, but I AM an immigrant to England and I happen to agree with everyone who has rubbished your pathetic article. My justification is that my parents worked extremely hard in order to build a solid grounding for my brother and I and sacrificed even more so that we could go to public school. I pride myself on being British. I pride myself on adopting a British way of life. I pride myself, and thoroughly enjoyed, paying close attention to British history at school. Most importantly I pride myself on my ability to speak fluent, unaccented English.

I’ve lived here for just over 20 years now. My father has never been out of work and my mother has been working for at least 17 of those 20 years. I attended University and my brother is currently at one. I believe we have earned the right to call ourselves British.

Unfortunately I cannot say the same thing AT ALL about some of the other people that came from where we came from. They do not wish to work. They see the UK as an opportunistic playground whereby an individual can simply waltz in, claim all the benefits and free medical care they want and live a life of exorbitant parasitism.

What you say in your first article is astonishingly naive, crude and very far from the truth.

What you say in your second article just affirms your wilful and unapologetic ignorance, your disdain for the UK and a cretinous devaluation of the meaning of the word, ‘British’.

Daniel Maris

Good points you make. Most people in this country aren’t racist, and are happy to get on with newcomers who make an effort to be part of our wider society. That doesn’t mean giving up entirely on the “old country” or its ways.

I certainly agree you have earned the right to be called British, in more than just name, because you have become part of the culture. As far as I am concerned – and I think most people (though not everyone obviously) – race is not part of Britishness. In any case becoming British is to become part of a people who have a very international outlook in many ways and whose culture (language, dress, music, art , design, films and so on) is very much part of world culture in a way that say China’s culture is not.

Mistie Holler

“As far as I am concerned – and I think most people (though not everyone obviously) – race is not part of Britishness.”

The only time my agreement with that sentiment was tested was when I was watching a discussion on the question of British identity (on Youtube under ‘Douglas Murry in the BBC’s Big Questions’).

Benjamin Zephaniah and a British Iranian Press TV journalist seemed to be contending that there was no such thing as British identity because Britain is such a mishmash of different races and religions, that everyone had to construct their own version of it.

It really bothered me because not everybody has an Iranian background, or a West Indian background, to construct their identity with. Some of us are ONLY plain old white British. Therefore to say that there is no such thing as a British identity is to say that I HAVE no identity.

I found myself watching them thinking “F*** you, Zephaniah! My family have been here for hundreds of years. Yours have been here for, what, two, three generations? You think that we didn’t do anything and our culture and history didn’t exist until YOU arrived with the windrush? As for you, Press TV guy – how dare you? I would never emigrate to Iran and then declare that Persian history and culture produced nothing identifably ‘Persian’ just because MY family wasn’t there when it happened!”.

I may have voted for UKIP once, a party Massie would like to believe is virtually the BNP, but that moment was the first and only time I have ever felt sympathy for that miserable, my-skin’s-paler-than-yours, us-vs-them sentiment. I accept that Benjamin Zephaniah is British because I wouldn’t seek to deny someone’s identity and culture the way he would like to deny mine (and actually, his own, since we both share a British identity, whether he’d like to believe we do or not). But I would never even THINK to question the Britishness of someone like AdemAljo, who sees himself first and foremost as a Brit (or Englishman) sharing in a British identity.

Mistie Holler

“That doesn’t mean giving up entirely on the “old country” or its ways.”
I have family members who are immigrants and am thrilled that they kept ‘the old country’s ways’. By so doing, they infused my childhood with wonder and curiosity.

Daniel Maris

I was careful to say Britishness rather than Englishness. Britishness never was a racial description. English can be considered so, and is far more ambiguous in that respect. However, lots of Irish, Scots and Welsh now feel English – so it clearly isn’t just an ethnic description either. And we are sharing that marvellous aspect of our country – English – with the rest of the world, which is a fantastic achievement for a little island off an isolated tip of the Eurasian landmass.

I agree many new immigrants seem incredibly insensitive to the feelings of people whose families have been here for hundreds or thousands of years.

Nick Good

UKIP as a proto BNP – Naah, the article is just a crude smear.

Also in the US – it was Democrats who most strongly resisted Black emancipation in the 60s, and most strongly punted segregationist Jim Crow laws.

(“They think we should not be hear.” I rather think you mean ‘here’.)

I suspect the reason imigrants and their kin vote left, is massive media bias, and transfer payments – the left’s largess with other peoples money and advocacy of big government.

In the UK there is Islamic seriel immigration and in the US, anchor babies. The MSM will not seriously address this on-ramp to mass, lower order, immigration of folks who will require massive welfare assistance and be a net drain rather than contributor to the exchequer. The left are in de facto cahoots with business interests who see immigration as a means of controlling wage prices.

http://twitter.com/raymondlunn Raymond Lunn

Does anybody really care about the English Working Class?

I myself a member of the English Underclass can only imagine with horror the future of my fellow ‘degenerates’. I see young Gipton (Leeds) lads daily who care little or even understand what country they live in, crime and drugs are the norm. Political parties don’t come knocking on the doors in Gipton, it’s a no go area for them. Labour relies heavily on the working class voters apathy and the increasing levels of immigrants in East Leeds. Having completed my degree at the University of Leeds, I believed I would be able to join the swing for social mobility, I’m still unemployed. I don’t blame one particular political party, they all drink out of the same cup. Having spent the last three years trying to join in and the the previous five before that educating myself, I can’t help the urge to move into something more radical, more aggressive if you like.

I remember my young cousins watching with interest my launch into higher education, it is also important to say – most of them are serious young offenders or young adult offenders, as I was when I was younger. They were proud of me when I got into the University of Leeds. Three years after graduation and three years of putting my narrative and life into the hands of criminal justice researchers and criminal justice organisations that gleefully used my narrative. I’m still unemployed, will be getting my electric cut off very soon because of my inability to pay the bill. Worse still the sense that eight years of my life would have probably been better spent in HMP Armley than the hallow Halls of the University of Leeds.

Please tell me – is this – what I’ve been through, being a role model.

Because I can tell you now, the cousins I made proud eight years ago, now look at someone who has been a bigger fool than what they have been, being offenders. At least they have not capitulated like me,

Sadly, and I mean this with regret at what I’m about to say, but the elite in this country need a bigger shock than what occurred in terms of the London riots, this country needs a really good shake, to its core, if it still has one!

Mistie Holler

Raymond, I’m sorry for your experiences and I hope things get better. I believe strongly that nobody cares about British people who are from poor areas and disadvantaged backgrounds. I saw a documentary a while ago about Deptford in London. It started off as a friendly, proud working class community. When social engineering became the cool new thing, the council declared the houses ‘unfit for human habitation’ even though they were basically just a bit shabby, looked for excuses to rip them all down, altered the area completely and packed the residents off to various isolated new estates. Tower blocks are monuments to the disdain that the elites have for working class people; it’s really no surprise that when a lot of struggling people are made to live stacked on top of each other by ringroads, life doesn’t get any better and an underclass develops. Then instead of sorting out the problem they created by helping these people, they get written off as lazy, feckless, worthless – just chuck some benefits money their way from the public purse so they don’t starve and forget about them except when using them as a justification for mass immigration: ‘See how lazy the British poor are? That’s why we need masses of immigrants!’. Never mind how completely unsustainable the approach is, never mind the native children growing up in cycles of hopelessness.

http://twitter.com/raymondlunn Raymond Lunn

Thank you Mistie, I re-read my post and realized I was not really commenting on the actual article, I was trying to scream for help for the forgotten. It was early in the morning too. I can’t thank you enough for your comment, some people do care. I just wish it would transfer into changing perspectives and social policy. The working classes do not have a voice – those who claim to be the voice, also love calling the ‘underclass’ racist and ‘white trash’ in particular those embedded in socialism.

Sadly the Conservatives, and include UKIP, do not engage the working classes, I’ve tried for years to engage them, they look at you with disdain, i don’t have the right accent. i once confronted Nick Herbert at the Howard League for Penal Reform Parmoor Lecture, egged on by Meril from the Economist – I was fully engaged in campaigning for reform of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 at the time – he looked down at me, and described me as the ‘twitterer’ and declined to answer my questions. I went away feeling very small.

The politicians and organisations tell us to educate ourselves and get involved, but when we do, we’re slapped down. And people question why folk turn off or worse go rioting!

Wessex Man

see you are confusing UKIP with the Tories now, weren’t the couple who are UKIP foster parents in Rotherham Labour Party members before joining UKIP? Didn’t UKIP come second in the Rotherham by-election in a strong Labour area?

We should be looking at the reason why people from all over the political divide are joining UKIP, instead of trying to smear them as racist like the BNP as Alex Massie does from one side to David Cameron on the other. It’s too lazy to just smear, we should be asking the electorate what they want what they really really want!

Beefeater

“Even here, politics is a matter of caring.”

There you have it. Once politics has become the politics of caring there is no point to a Conservative party – as we now see amply demonstrated in the coalition. Any last vestige of a national identity based on the British ideas of justice – the hard-won concept of equality before the law – and civil liberties has faded away. In its place is social justice. Social justice – the politics of caring – is post-national. The left attaches meaning not to national identity but to existential status – membership in various collectives competing for equality (race, gender, marital status, sexuality, country of origin etc.) For the left, the vote is not a privilege of British citizenship, a bulwark against tyranny, it is an adjunct of a human (possibly higher primate) life, its claim-ticket for care (which includes “respect”). As such it is universally valid, but can only actually be paid out in democracies where majoritarianism is not constrained constitutionally and can aspire to tyranny. (That is to say, everywhere, even the US). The old fair-minded, decent, unsentimental, self-supporting, practical, business-like Briton proud to be a Briton (of whatever race or place of origin) is no longer able to sustain itself as a national civic character. The Tories cannot bring him back as a benign old squire with paternal good will for his estate. “Welcome, people of other lands. Jolly decent of you to come to work to support us pensioners.” The left’s image of the Briton as the aggrieved common person is powerfully attractive – and can be grasped and adopted easily by immigrants. Immigrants have assimilated extremely well into the new Britain. They vote left because that is the new Britain and they are the new Britons.

Rudi74

“emigration is an entrepreneurial act and immigrants tend to be thrifty, hard-working types.” I stopped reading afther that sentence. Anyone who writes that is worthless on the immigration issue. Why can’t Massie write for The Guardian? The short answer to the question: immigrants don’t support right-wing parties for tribal and self-interested economic reasons.

Terence Hale

Hi,
Today’s easy question: Why won’t minorities support right-wing parties? This is like asking; Why does not the pilot sit in the back of the plane?

andagain

Again, this is not the sort of thing that David Cameron or Boris Johnson believes.

But it is the sort of thing that many of their supporters believe. And they have to pay some attention to their supporters. So it is reasonable to believe that they may do things to make their supporters happy.

Incidently, I find it entertaining that Alex writes a column saying that immigrants tend not to support the right because the existing right-wing supporters dislike them, and we then get a lot of comments attacking immigrants, and attacking Alex for saying that right-wingers dislike immigrants.

Mistie Holler

“…don’t get me wrong, yer individual immigrant might be a decent enough bloke there are, in general and this is god’s-honest-troof, just far too many of them.

Well, when that immigrant or that son or daughter of immigrants reads this stuff how do you think they are going to react? How would you react if that were you?”

Some of us have actually lived and worked in other countries, and would react totally differently to the way you’re suggesting. Some of us understand that other countries are only worth living and working in if there AREN’T three million people who look and think like I do there to disrupt things. Some of us are happy that so many countries are relatively homogenous, because it gives them a strength and stability that **reasonable** numbers of migrant workers may benefit from.
I understand that while I may be a ‘decent enough’ person, put three million more of me into a foreign country over a mere ten years, and soon enough the country will start to look different. And not necessarily in a good way. And this will hapen even if we are all ‘decent enough’ people.
Why do we always have to have these tiresome people shrieking about the UK being waaaaycist when we are a helluva lot more diverse than so many other more successful economies – Japan, Korea, China etc? When you watched the 2008 Beijing Olympic opening ceremony, did you tut and fret about there being not a single black face among the performers, or is that kind of neurotic, pathetic obsession with diversity only reserved for us evil ex-imperialist types?

Mistie Holler

…By ex-Imperialist, I mean ‘European ex-Imperialist’, of course.

Daniel Maris

Yes, China is still very much “currently” imperialist as the good people of Tibet will tell you.

Mistie Holler

Yes, true.

Colonel Mustard

You’ve got it in one!

Ali Buchan

It’s very difficult to say ‘stop, that’s enough’ once large-scale immigration has begun, without resorting to arguments about the ‘indigenous population’ or ‘national identity’. And they tend to be very shaky foundations on which to build a defence.

It’s almost like giving away part of your chocolate bar. The initial act of saying ‘here, have some of mine’ becomes very different when someone tells you to share it out equally – ‘but I bought it, so I should get the most’ or ‘they’re taking too much’ would be likely objections.

The question is, was it ours to give away in the first place?

http://twitter.com/stormforce999 A Skiver

Conservatism should appeal to a set of values and not derive from where your parents came from. Controlling mass immigration is a valid and reasonable argument in my opinion – but it’s being hijacked by unpleasant, anti-immigrant bigotry. That is turning off plenty of natural conservative voters.

Daniel Maris

I think this is a very difficult argument to conduct. For one thing there is the cultural English reserve about saying things publicly that appear to offend. For another there is the guilt of a pretty sordid imperialist past.

For another there is the ever-present confusion between race, religion, and culture.

Then there are the confusions relating to the fact we no longer fully control our borders and are members of the EU.

On top of that we have no proper governmental analysis of the costs of immigration and all immigration tends to get lumped together.

So a debate is not easy and the government and political commentators do nothing to facilitate a rational debate.

However, you can either have this debate now while there is still a slim chance we can bypass the rapids, or you can leave it to our children 20 years down the line, when things will be completely out of control and the outcomes are probably going to be deeply unpleasant all round.

Steve

It’s typical of AM to blame the people who commented on his article for the lamentable state of his own writing. Massie tends to be one of the rudest columnists about other writers so we shouldn’t be surprised, but then again we are the people who actually read his work. I notice the comment threads rarely clog up with support for his views.

Here’s my objections to mass immigration and please tell me if this is racist. We are importing more people than we have jobs or demand for thus the costs of supporting and providing services for these people outweighs the benefits. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and France have far lower net migration than we do and stronger economic growth so the argument that the more immigrants the stronger the growth is hogwash. If that were true why don’t we let in double the amount of immigrants and make ourselves twice as well off? Even countries that were built on immigration, like Australia and New Zealand, have tough controls as they only want the best.

I know AM gets very emotional in his support for immigration and that’s fine. But it’s laughable of him to claim, as he did in his last post, that the census figures demonstrate the importance of immigration. He would have said that whatever the figures contained.

Daniel Maris

It would help, wouldn’t it, if he responded to an invitation to set out under what conditions he might NOT support mass immigration into this country. I think we would then discover that there are NO conditions under which he would not support mass immigration.

Mistie Holler

“…the argument that the more immigrants the stronger the growth is hogwash. If that were true why don’t we let in double the amount of immigrants and make ourselves twice as well off?”
Great question.

Lobrio

All of you who are in the dole queues, make sure that you gaily wave at passing foreigners on their ways to their employment please……….otherwise, you will be seen as racists !

Malfleur

“though, don’t get me wrong, yer individual immigrant might be a
decent enough bloke there are, in general and this is
god’s-honest-troof, just far too many of them.”

Very fair impression of one of the “leading columnists in mainstream right-of-centre newspapers”! Did you annotate the voice in a working-class pub?

Tell me, Massie, is there any number of foreign immigrants which you would consider “just far too many” or are you an unlimited entry man? Or perhaps you recognize that there is such a maximum, but you want us to go far beyond it because you are a Scotch anglo-phobe? It cannot be because you believe that there is NO figure which, if allowed, would irreversibly change England into a foreign country – or at least an “England” that was no longer English like a “marriage” without a man and a woman. After all, if we were to transport twenty million North Koreans to Scotland, what price haggis? So which is it? Or have you, along with your editor, sworn the secret Neathergate Vow of silence?

Colonel Mustard

Brilliant riposte to an article of astounding twee-ness.

Daniel Maris

I can guarantee you, you won’t get an answer to that. As I said elsewhere, I don’t think Massie considers these things rationally, he simply likes the “mood music” of being “liberal” , “tolerant”, and “pro-immigration”.

romanlee

, emigration is an entrepreneurial act and immigrants tend to be thrifty, hard-working types.
Pakistani 50% unemployed, 80% on benifits. hard working indeed.

Austin Barry

“Equally, spend time in any working-class pub in Britain..”

Alex, I suspect your regular attendance at such pubs would be limited. The bad dentistry, the fetid odours and foul, racist ambiance would be too much for your refined sensibilities.

Since immigrants will never vote for parties which suggest that their presence is inimical to the national interest, the frustrated right (and I include the marginalised native working class) will ultimately embrace more robust measures which will not be pretty, but may well be inevitable.

Civil war may seem as historically remote as the moon, but when you consider the seething, simmering resentment of those who did not riot (mostly the white British) one wonders to what, exactly. the next riot will give birth.

notme3

Simple:: Left wing parties are the ones most likely to let them bring over their fifteen year old cousins to marry off, and turn a blind eye to the widespread prostitution of young white girls, simply for them being white, and the perpetrators not.

FrankS

A more immediate question for the Tories is, why won’t conservatives support them.

Austin Barry

Well, they’re not conservatives are they, simply the Eton educated wing of the Labour party.

http://300wordtheses.blogspot.co.uk/ Gerry Dorrian

My answer to your question would be because right and left are yesterday’s classifications. Patriots are caricatured as being right-wing racists, but in reality we come from all political directions in order to envelop and transcend left and right. When Gordon Brown made his “bigoted woman” remark, he not only alienated many on his own political turf, he lost the election on matters related to immigration, whereas for decades elections have been won and lost on the economy. It’s time for people of all backgrounds to ask themselves whether Great Britain is a project worth saving; and if their answer to that is “yes”, it’s time to to vote for parties that are fighting today’s battles.

Kevin

“How would you react if that were you?”

If I were non-ethnic British and still a Christian it would be a cold day in Hell before I would vote for a pro-abortion party.

Hugh

Yes, emigration is an entrepreneurial act. Does that mean that immigrants must, by definition, constitute a net gain to the exchequer of the country they emigrate to? Plainly not. A Pole who emigrates to earn £18,000 in the UK against £9,000 at home is obviously showing some industrious flare, but that doesn’t mean he’s making a net contribution to public finances in the UK

And, yes, I suppose those who are immigrants here are, on balance, unlikely to favour a party that suggests a hard line in immigration. Therefore it’s wrong to opposed very high levels of immigration? Again, it’s not the best argument is it?

Perhaps much of the opposition to immigration is down to closet racism, but given the paucity of the case you make for it, it hardly seems necessary.

http://twitter.com/rlpkamath Rahul Kamath

Alex – you are substantially correct here. My political views (soft-libertarian), my economic profile and my cultural leanings (more Wagner than Bollywood) would strongly suggest that I vote Tory. But I am deeply hesistant due to some primal dislike/ fear. A fear of being not wanted, of being viewed as second class, of constantly having to defend my existence. My sense is that the Tories will need a Clause IV type moment to get past this with most people like myself. In the meanwhile we are in somewhat of a political wasteland. I will most likely vote Lib Dem.

Austin Barry

Vote Lib Dem?

You will be one of few.

The party which brought us Jeremy ‘Bunnies’ Thorpe, Sir Cyril ‘let-me-help-you–scrub-your- todger’ Smith, Mark ‘ on-me-head, son’ Oaten and other exotic beasts like Huhne and Laws will deservedly be banished to the rubbish bin of history at the next election.

Why waste your vote?

Wessex Man

Wasted your vote there then Rahul Kamath at the next election!

Colonel Mustard

Don’t blame your dislike/fear on the Tories. It is the product of relentless socialist propaganda (such as Massie’s) and a couple of stupendously ignorant own goals (May’s “nasty party”). Try to invert your feelings and imagine a genuinely compassionate and libertarian conservative, faced with the barrage of daily abuse and stereotyping from the socialist hegemony, feeling exactly the same way about openly articulating his politics. Of experiencing a fear of being not wanted, of being viewed as second class, of constantly having to defend his existence against taunts to die off, of “bigot”, “racist”, “dinosaur”, etc.

It’s not a Clause IV moment that is required, but a conservative rights movement that will establish their legitimacy to express dissent in an increasingly conformist society.

http://twitter.com/rlpkamath Rahul Kamath

I’ll do that when you do that too.

Colonel Mustard

I’ve tried but I just can’t imagine a genuinely compassionate and libertarian socialist. The empirical evidence against that is just too great. They are too willing to abandon all pretence of integrity to the goal of winning power over others. Whereas much of the “nastiness” attributed to conservatives is falsified, subjective or exaggerated we have no less than 13 years of hard factual evidence of Labour’s crimes against the British people, for which they have never been properly held to account or apologised. And still it continues, with Balls/McBride/Watson sponsored smearing of opponents.

Sorry about that. I just detest them.

http://twitter.com/rlpkamath Rahul Kamath

Btw, just to be clear I define myself as a compassionate libertarian conservative. U seem too as well. Yet we have 180 degree opposing opinions. Maybe this is a commentary on the value of ideology.

pdhansson

you’re playing the victim card in a not very tasteful way. attacking somebody due to their opinions or their race are two very different things. & there’s obviously no socialist hegemony in a country where the daily telegraph, mail and the sun continue to be by far the largest newspapers.

Colonel Mustard

I’m not playing any victim card, just expressing an opinion.

Those newspapers represent the majority of ordinary people not the socialist system running the country (into the ground).

Stuart Eels

pdhansson

Do you think those papers are the largest because they carry the views of a minority? course not they are the largest because they represent the views of the vast majority of the people who obviously don’t share your views. the socialist hegemony has lasted for forty years and brought us to our knees and now Joe Public is waking up thank the Lord.

pierre

massie’s position on immigration will be similar to other in the patronising class; that is: as long as it doesn’t threaten his position!

Austin Barry

Alex lives in the Scottish borders. Nothing multicultural has happened there since he re-bristled his Canadian curling broom.

Daniel Maris

I suppose an Irish Catholic immigrant Celtic supporter might one day have drifted south into the area by accident after an extended post match binge. That would cause quite a stir in the local Kirk I expect.

Laurence

Austin, Alex lives in his father’s shadow. He is, simply, a less irksome Giles Coren. Were it not for coattails then he would be anonymous.

Robert Thomas

I read Mr Massie’s previous article on the census figures with some interest. It seemed to be written specifically to provoke a response – and here is the response to the response. Did Mr Massie engage with or attempt to counter any of the arguments made by the (mostly) reasonable and thoughtful comments (28 at the time of writing) his previous article garnered?

No.

Instead, he accusses “right-wing parties” and “columnists in right-of-centre newspapers” of having a “race problem”. Without quoting a single right-wing politician or newspaper columnist, he asserts that, given their “illiberal attitudes to immigration”, it is little wonder right-wing parties struggle to attract “the black, asian or immigrant voter”.

I think it very odd indeed for someone who accusses his opponents of prejudice and racial bigotry to assign collective characteristics to three separate ‘identity groups’ on the basis of ethnicity and place of birth.

First, most black and Asian voters in this country are not immigrants. So, why are they lumped together in this careless fashion? Second, where is the evidence to suggest that it is immigration policy that is failing to attract “the black, asian and immigrant voter” to the Conservative Party? Support for all three mainstream parties is falling and has been for a long time.

Mr Massie is clearly happy about the current (historically) high levels of immigration into this country. That his opinion. Others may have a different point of view – based on costs, culture and population density. I agree that this is a potetntially “sensitive” issue that should be discussed in “sensible” terms. But, rather than engage in the honest debate he claims to want, Mr Massie seeks to smear those with whom he disagrees.

Finally, Mr Massie’s plea to stop playing “identity politics” is sick-making. He is the person who conflates “the black, asian and immigrant voter”. He is the person who defines “minorities” as a homogeneous mass repelled by tighter controls on immigration. He is the person who deigns to speak on behalf of millions of voters, putting words in their mouths. This manner of political ‘analysis’ based on ethno-centric lines was all too apparent during the coverage of the American Presidential election in the US media. I found it creepy and weird at the time and it is depressing to see it slither across the pond.

Sensible limits to slow the pace of mass immigration are not motivated by bigotry and should not be mischaracterised as such.

Ali Buchan

I’d just like to show a wee bit of support for Massie’s analysis. Much of it resonates with me and, I think it’s fair to say, would chime with many of my contemporaries who have grown up in a multicultural, multi-ethnic Britain.

Having said that, it’s important to avoid the trap, which we all fall into from time to time, of believing that any of us speak for large sections of society. Phrases like ‘our values’ and ‘our culture’ are dangerous – from what I’ve seen on this site, my idea of ‘British culture’ is very different to a great many of you.

The act of emigration is, as Mr Massie says, an entrepreneurial act, and I feel proud that Britain, more than most other states, has been able to open the doors and share the opportunities that the nation has to offer to those that want to grab them with both hands.

(It’s amusing that, on the topic of gay marriage, many commenters on this website have criticised the ‘London Liberati’, or what ever they choose to call them, for not understanding the views of the rest of the country. Here (considering comments on the linked-to page, too), many have decided to criticise a columnist’s informed opinion, because he comes from Scotland and therefore cannot possibly understand the concerns of those of us that live in England’s major cities!)

I enjoyed your post Mr Massie, and I hope you get a jolly good laugh from all of us who post our ill-informed opinions down here! Be like Democritus.

Hugh

How do you know he’s informed?

Daniel Maris

Well that’s not very penetrating is it? There is no contradiction between observing (a) that London’s opinion is not the opinion of the rest of the country and (b) that London’s problems are not those of the rest of the country.

The act of emigration is just as much an act of desperation as enterprise. If they are entrepreneurs they are not making their way in society. According to the Poverty Site the proportion of people who live in low-income households
for various ethnic groups is:

20% for White people.

30% for Indians and Black Caribbeans.

50% for Black Africans.

60% for Pakistanis.

70% for Bangladeshis.

Ali Buchan

I wasn’t implying that it was necessarily a contradiction. It was merely an observation that reflected the difficult job of a columnist, which, rightly or wrongly, I found amusing.

It is a mistake, in my opinion, to keep reducing the area in which ‘people who really understand’ are allowed to live. I reside in Hampstead, which probably means I can’t possibly even attempt to comprehend most issues, because of the middle-class, under-30 spectacles through which I view them.

The alternative is, and I prefer this option, is to express an informed opinion – like Mr Massie has done – while retaining an awareness of any subjective factors that may have contributed to it and accepting fair, rather than vitriolic, criticism.

But, regardless of the point above, there is a BIG problem with any argument that begins with ‘London’s opinion is…’ or ‘the rest of the country’s opinion is…’

I’m not sure I would agree with your thoughts on emigration. I suspect the ex-pat community in Hong Kong, for instance, would defend themselves against the accusation of desparation.

Didn’t understand this point: “If they are entrepreneurs they are not making their way in society.” It sounds like you would prefer someone to accept a dead-end job instead of seeing them strive to develop a business that creates jobs, which seems rather counter-intuitive. But, as I said, I suspect I’ve misunderstood.

Daniel Maris

Difficult? Must have taken him all of twenty minutes to put that together.

Columnists and commentators are not historians or political scientists. They have to write in short hand. London is different from the rest of the country – that’s short hand but it’s also true. And yes, Hampstead is different from Walthamstow.

Since when has “as much” meant “exclusively”? I never said immigration was exclusively an act of desperation.

There are different types of migration . The child bride from Pakistan isn’t readying herself to come to the UK for marriage to someone she has never met out of an entrepreneurial drive. Lots of Asian immigration is clan-driven. People are in effect emigrating en masse, whilst retaining links to the old country. Others, like Somali and Congolese refugees clearly come here to escape wars and victimisation. Many east Europeans come here as an act of economic desperation, to do things like cleaning and turnip picking but it is pretty clear would not come here if they could get a job back home. Not many of them have aspirations to do anything more than the jobs they come over for. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not entrepreneurial, and one suspects that in his heart Massie knows that. He’s just trying to confuse the issue by introducing the sexy word “entrepreneurial” into the subject area.

Of course there is economically beneficial immigration eg scientists and technologists from abroad who enable us to develop export industries. But a Bangladeshi cook who can’t speak English and brings over a wife with whom he has maybe 4 or 5 children and who is dependent on welfare benefits for housing and income support is in no sense helping our economy.

Incidentally not all real immigrant entrepreneurs are necessarily good for the country. They often come as the Trojan horses of foreign companies and set about merrily dismantling our industries, our football clubs, our brands. We have to look carefully at each case.

Colonel Mustard

You might benefit from a little circumspection about growing up in multicultural, multi-ethnic Britain. The experience is perhaps age related as I grew up in a very different Britain where my education and early lessons inculcated expectations (of me not by me) that have been entirely overthrown by the more recent decisions of politicians. I was born here and still live here but short of conformist re-education then diversity ought to at least respect my own experience and the difficulty of adjusting to the change, which was not brought about with my consent and which I did not vote for in any manifesto. If you invert Said’s Orientalism it is possible to view your comment, paraphrasing him, as “an immigrant style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over Britain”.

I am not anti-immigration per se, but I am anti the way the pro-immigration bull often runs amok in the china shop, battering opposition with perceived stereotypical bigotry rather than seeking to understand and accommodate genuinely held concerns.

Ali Buchan

I think you make a number of very good points, actually.

We all look at life through different filters; the one that my education and experience has moulded for me is obviously very different for the one that was created for you.

Out of interest, did you happen to hear the R4 programme a few weeks back about the importance of primary-school reading in indoctrinating kids? As a five-year-old, I remember reading about the Hindu family that lived near Roger Red Hat and Billy Blue Hat – it really does begin there, I think

I totally understand the frustration about the way your beliefs and feelings are trampled on, though – it’s way too easy for my side to brandish the ‘racist’ card. That gets us nowhere, but neither does railing aggressively against ‘leftys’ like they’re one big, subversive mass.

Nobody’s to blame. I’ll argue that it’s progress, others will argue that it isn’t, and we’ll see where we get to. What I’m certain of, though, is that in 20 or 30 years’ time – if I’m still around – I will, like you, be looking at an issue that contradicts my values and thinking that the government has lost its head.

But I think that’s just the way things go – certainly seems to have been the case for many hundreds of years.

PS. Not sure I agree with you about Eddy’s inverted Orientalism. I’m not even sure how one would define the word ‘immigrant’ anymore; certainly first-generation settlers aren’t dominating or restructuring anything

Colonel Mustard

It was probably wrong to paraphrase Said as “immigrant style”. What I should have articulated is those, of any background, who promote mass immigration, multi-culturalism and multi-ethnicity as a labelled good of themselves and those promoters include many who are not immigrants. In fact I believe that without their “help” immigration would not now be such a divisive issue. They have contributed to the sense of “other” (in both directions) which was what I was trying to express.

My education and upbringing were positively racist but entirely un-self aware. School books and education were full of unquestioning jingoism about (white) British superiority, traditional heroes and the stereotyping of “other” but in a presumed, settled or (especially) patronising rather than overtly supremacist way. It was egocentric, towards self and triumphalist rather than deliberately dismissive of “other”. A positive aspect I remember was the confidence of identity which has now been replaced by a false, trumpeted and parochial kind of nationality or by guilt. It was only with service abroad in the dying years of Empire that I became more self aware and recognised both the benefit and deficit of colonisation. Ironically more progress towards genuine diversity and multi-culturalism were made there and then than I have seen here and now. So much of it here is rooted in angst and grievance rather than respect, mutual dependency and celebration. But perhaps those inclined to seek adventure abroad as young men were more open minded and inquisitive to cultural diversity anyway.

The worst kind of tokenism is now on display, like the Sikh guardsman at Buckingham Palace, whose own aspirations have been totally lost in the conformist justifications and boasts (“No racists, we”) trotted out by the Guards and MoD. It is a strange mix of identity and integration. I would rather have seen a whole unit of Sikhs, a platoon or even company, take their place as Guardsmen in recognition of our shared heritage and history. But perhaps that, too, would have been a demonstration of colonial-era patronisation. A difficult subject – for all.

Ali Buchan

Really enjoyed reading that post and agree with much of what you say.

Given that you served abroad and have a deep interest in these kinds of issues, you may be interested to read ‘Nationalism’ by Rabindranth Tagore – it really opened my eyes to an important and often unheard view of Britain’s impact on colonial India in terms of both the individual and the collective.

Daniel Maris

Indians are very nationalistic – in a v. triumphalist way. I once spent an evening at a British Indian cultural event: it was all about India, how wonderful India is, how great are India’s eminences and so on.

I am not particularly expecting British Indians to interest themselves in British culture. But lets not have any pretence that these immigrant communities aren’t highly chauvinist about their own cultures – that is one of the serious problem with mass immigration.

Mistie Holler

Tagore is amazing. I hadn’t realised he wrote anything other than poetry. I’ll have to read that.

Ali Buchan

It’s in the Penguin ‘Great Ideas’ series, and it only costs £4.99. It’s beautiful.

http://twitter.com/hatfiundo Al

@43288e13bec48d2b00ce763bd3e8f08a:disqus

Did mass immigration to the USA or Australia degrade per capita GDP? Or are they two of the most successful countries in the world?

Jebediah

Try asking the native Americans and aborigines how “successful” the colonisation of Australia and America was for them.

Austin Barry

Slightly disingenuous. Immigration to both countries has, until recently, been mostly European.

Daniel Maris

Al,

Well clearly the value of immigration to an economy varies case by case and there is of course the question of how we measure the value.

The most obvious difference between the UK and US/Australia is population density. Even now, in the 21st century the differences are huge. There are 650 people per sq mile in the UK, but only 84 in the USA and only a paltry 7 in Australia!

That tells you immediately that both the USA and Australia (being blessed with plenty of good farmland and mineral resources) always had huge per capita resources available for exploitation by (realitvely) technically advanced people.

Ours is now a mature economy. Many of our indigenous resources are depleted. We now have packed conurbations into which the immigrants are moving, but we their presence is not providing enough of an economic stimulus to build new housing for them. They are a net drain on housing.

The question for crowded England is how are immigrants adding to per capita GDP. Clearly in the last 6 years they haven’t been adding to per capita GDP as a matter of objective fact.

But a more thorough analysis would have to look at a whole range of factors: what is the impact of mass immigration on public services – health, housing and so on? what is the impact of mass immigration on housing costs? what is the impact of mass immigration on crime and prisons? what skills do immigrants bring that we don’t have? does mass immigration create youth unemployment? what is the impact of mass immigration on the birth rate? what is the cost of additional facilities for immigrants such as NHS Femal Genital Mutilation clinics, special English teaching and additional interactions with the Home Office and Foreign Office? to what extent are low wage immigrants being subsidised by the state through welfare payments?

Those are just a few of the questions that need to be asked.

http://twitter.com/raymondlunn Raymond Lunn

If you believe that success is based on GDP per capita! Then mass immigration is certainly your ticket to feeling good in the morning about the world just before you tuck into your egg benedict and the headlines on the front page of the Financial Times. Come to Gipton pal and tell the kids there about how successful GDP is per capita. Yes, you can rightly assume they won’t have a clue what your talking about, most are too worried about whether they’ll survive with less food and benefits this winter, Have a really good think about how you measure success.

Leo McKinstry

Alex, I wish you would stop repeating that fashionable myth that immigrants “tend to be thrifty, hard-working types”, driven by an “entrepreneurial” spirit. That claim is just absurd, a central plank of the deceitful propoganda which is constantly spouted by the pro-immigration lobby. In fact, huge numbers of immigrants are drawn here by our unaffordable, amoral £220,000 billion welfare system, which has lost all grasp of the contributory principle that was once supposed to be at its heart. Thanks to the lunacy of social security, migrants from Asia and Africa who have paid no taxes or national insurance in Britain are able to live in multi-million pound houses in London, paid for by British taxpayers who could never dream of affording such accommodation. And when the Tory-led coalition proposed cracking down on the excesses of housing benefit, Labour accused them of racism. You should recognise that a host of reputable studies, including one by Despatches for Channel 4, has shown that, contrary to your wishful thinking, people from immigrants communities are more likely to be unemployed. living in social hosuing and in receipt of benefst than those from the indigenous population. Ninety per cent of Somalians, for instance, live in taxpayer-funded housing. I repeat my earlier comment: if mass immigration is really such an economic gain, they why is our country gripped by such a deepening economic crisis.

pdhansson

£200,000 billion? that’s almost 300 times the actual total tax revenue. No surprise there, this message board is just shock full of similar untruths, lies and fear mongering stats, nicely illustrating the point of the article. (If you’d like to get your figure right in the future, the correct size of the UK benefits pot is £159bn (and decreasing), half of which goes on pensions.)

Mike

If there was a situation where the following occurred.

1. Compulsory english test and lessons to be paid for by immigrants.

2. No translation services.

3. British history and culture to be taught in schools: no foreign culture to be taught. In a Jewish Scool in Birmingham , the 90% of Muslim parents are happy to accept that their children will be taught Jewish customs.

4. No welfare payments to immigrants until 20 years of taxes paid.

5. No social housing to immigrants.

6. Foreign spouses required to pay £10,000 per year for 5 years.

7. Points based upon skills required and defined for certain areas.

8. Five years in combat role in Armed Services awards citizenship ( has to be combat, admin in RAF not considered).

9. Children of immigrants not granted citizenship until parents paid 20 years of taxes or served fro 5 years in combat role in Armed Services.

10. Any criminal acts means deportation. Any appeal to be un dertaken from country where person has been deported to.

11. Twenty years to be granted citizenship and must have spent 20 years paying taxes. Must prove have spent a life of economic benefit to the UK which means taxes paid exceed equivalent value of services from the state. If it costs £4,000 to educate one child then tax paid must exceeed £4,000. Free of any criminal activity and/or association or any activity detrimental to the UK.

12. Medical insurance to be taken out to cover medical expenses.

The reality is that the welfare state , Police, law and and Armed Forces did not suddenly happen tin 1945 but have have slowly been built up since the Saxon Times- our counties are largely Saxon. Oxford University was founded in 1280 and some of our hospitals in the Middle Ages. Our army regiments date to 1660. Yes, let have immigrants but they must pay for the services and be of economic benefit to the country or have shown to be prepared to die for the country. Immigrants must accept the British way of life takes and it takes precedence when it comes to any language,religious , cultural and issues of customs .

Rome accepted immigrants, one could serve in the legions for 20 years and on retirement one was given land and a pension. Rome demanded loyalty to her, her customs , traditions institutuions and way of life.

parthvader

And should immigrants have to wear a red band on their arm?

Not to mention almost all of the provisions you asked for have existed since the points based system came in.

Immigrant have to take an IELTS test for English that many British people would fail.

And contrary to your tabloid influenced alternate reality, immigrants (minus asylum seekers) DO NOT have recourse to public funds. As for dying for the country, why not test every person whether born here or not to demonstrate this uber nationlist quality, if they fail they should have the same rights as immigrants.

And mind you, traditions are man made and naturally evolve through time. Artificially forcing an old culture/tradition to endure through state policy is nor traditional nor natural.

Jebediah

Alex Massie seems quite a smug and condescending chap judging by the headline and his tweets. It seems we should all just accept an unvoted for change in society without being the least bit upset. If you don’t accept it you are, almost, but not quite (as he doesn’t have the guts to say it), racist.
His argument about vote losing is probably vaild. His lack of sympathy and understanding for the none recent immigrants in British society is despicable… almost, perhaps “distant cousins” to a much nastier word and accusation.

Wilhelm

To Massie and liberals twits like him, black people are seen as ” cool, hip and edgy” and whites are ” old, square and boring.”

Massie wouldn’t last 10 seconds in a black ghetto.

Austin Barry

Black ghetto? How about on a London Bus while being strangled?

Wilhelm

” Why won’t minorities vote for right wing parties ? ”

Because they will cut their welfare payments, duh !!

retundario

The latest in a long list of completely idiotic articles. Such an unbelievable reductive childish analysis – all of this man’s work reads as though it was written by some spotty adolescent, but I suppose that’s libertarians for you. Here, the extremely difficult topic of ethnic relations is reduced to a simple Guardian-style narrative where it’s all the fault of white conservatives’ ideological impurity and it’s just that simple. These stupid baby-boomers such as this author are stuck in the 1960s, the age of white anglo-saxon dominance is coming to an end, just look at the USA, it’s no longer interesting or good enough to think through the “it’s all our fault” filter. Non-whites have agency too, will the 1960s hippies ever learn this.

Daniel Maris

Precisely. The problem of racism in London is much more profound among Asian, Turkish, Kurdish, Polish and African incomers than white British people.

You’re quite correct to say the analysis, as far as it goes, is childish.

Daniel Maris

I suppose that’s one approach – when a laughably thin apology for mass immigration is rightly rubbished and left shot through with so many holes it might as well be a string vest, change tack to the old racism defence.

Number one. We don’t need lectures on racism down in London, probably the most racially integrated city in the world.

Why not lecture the Scots (who happen to be amongst the least ethnically diverse people on the planet) and who supplied probably most of the slavers in the United States and throughout the British West Indies as well.

Race may be a concern for some but it is not the main problem with mass immigration. The main issues are failure to integrate, negative economic effects (the ONS have admitted that mass immigration has degraded per capita GDP) and importation of communities with cultures strongly antithetical to our value system.

John Lea

“The BNP and their little, distant cousins in UKIP (related on immigration anyway)”.

So, opposing mass immigration now makes you a closet BNP supporter, does it? How pathetic. Even Labour – which inflicted mass immigration on this country without any mandate for doing so – now admit that the numbers who entered here during their watch may have been a tad excessive.

Daniel Maris

Well said, and what exactly is Massie’s position on immigration?

Is it that whatever particularly number of net migrants come to this country in any one year happens to be – incredibly – “just right”…so it seems.

Or maybe that we should fling the doors even wider given the inevitable economic and cultural benefits that flow from mass immigration, according to him. If not, why not. If it’s good and to be welcomed – as he says – that Londoners have stopped thinking of themselves as English, surely it will be even better when Bristolians, Brummies, Liverpudlians, Geordie and Mancunians have also given up thinking of themselves as English people.

What is his policy on the population of the UK? Does he think we should look forward in equanimity to a population of 100 million, mostly stuffed into the south east corner of England, Tokyo-style?

And how many young unemployed is he prepared to see in this country, denied entry into work because they face such unfair competition from the whole of the rest of the planet (and I mean the whole of the rest of the planet – how have we ended up with Korean, Brazilian, Ecuadorian, Congolese and Russian communities when their home countries have never been part of the EU or Commonwealth even?).

But don’t expect reasoned responses – just more emotionalism and fake economics.

Stuart Eels

Yes he rather showed his own “illiberal” views there, it should be taken as a compliment by UKIP that he is that worried about their rise to second place after the Labour Party in Labour strongholds and his party losing their deposit!

He could have offered up for debate a proper report but shows his own blinkered views instead.

EJ

Quite right – it is pathetic. Typical Leftie tactic to try and smear UKIP (now the third party in British politics – wonder why!) by linking them to the BNP (who also have every right as a legitimate party to have their opinions heard).

You really wonder what kind of a bubble people like Massie inhabit. No one’s denying that strictly controlled immigration of skilled workers is a good thing. But what we’ve suffered over the last fifteen years is a tidal wave from the third world inflicted on us by a party of traitors who wished to change the very nature of our country forever. They have succeeded in a most sinister way. And when more Eastern European countries are allowed into the EU the flood will bring this country to its knees.

On an island of this size with limited resources this is quite simply unsustainable. The only ones who benefit are the immigrants. While the white British are forced into cowed silence while every aspect of their lives is diminished. We have vast and growing swathes of our cities and towns becoming no-go ghettos. Immigrant criminality is rife. Our culture is being displaced. There is extreme over-crowding and our public services are crippled. And the indigenous population are now in an irreversible process which will reduce them to a client minority in their own land. This process will be horrific.

Imagine what this country will really be like twenty or thirty years from now – then spout your idealistic leftist platitudes.

Wilhelm

Professor of demographics at Oxford David Coleman has said ” England will become a majority black country by 2066.” Break out the champagne, Soweto here we come !!